THE Marlborough Express. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 8, 1879. THE FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XIV, Issue 1095, 8 January 1879, Page 5

THE Marlborough Express.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 8, 1879.

THE FUTURE OF THE WORKING CLASSES.

” Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue reely according to conscience, above all other liberties —Mimok.

We are obliged to omit our leading article, in order to get in numerous articles of local interest.

Second Paper. J. S. Mill says “ Whatever advice, exhortation, or guidance is held out to the labouring classes, must henceforth he tendered to them as equals, and accepted by them with their eyes open.” This statement sets forth very clearly the-altered condition of the relations existing between the two great classes, which make up the bulk of the nations. It is significant of very much more than the limits of our space will permit us to discuss, or indeed than our special purpose requires us to deal with. It is no longer important to teach the working class how to yield a becoming deference to their superiors, but rather to educate them to a temperate and dignified use of the independence and liberty with which they are now invested. The political institutions of modern days are relegating more and more fully to the working classes the power of determining the character of the future pplitical and social condition of society. This is especially true of the young democracies so rapidly assuming the dimensions and importance of nations, as dependencies of the British Crown. Here are to be found in a very limited degree, if at all, the conservative forces, and influences, and prestige which arise from the presence of aristocratic families, and the habits of long-continued deference paid unto such. True, we find a class in all those communities who would like to play the role of an aristocracy, but the comicalities of such pretentions sefve only to amuse where they do not disgust; and are in every sense contemptible. The emancipation of the serfs raised them to the dignity of wage-receiving animals, no longer bound by

“ The constant service of the antique world,” In which good old time, and indeed long after, “ the humblest cabin and the coarsest fare were thought too good for the villain.” As we con-template-the condition of the great mass of the working, especially the agricultural, class of labourers from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century—when we find them rising, under the leadership of Ash and others, to demand some fair consideration at the hands of their lords and masters—we cannot fail to he struck with the long enduring patience of a down-trodden people. Retribution in some form will assuredly avenge the sufferings of centuries. There is no greater blot on the squireocracy and the parish clergy of agricultural England, than the heartless indifference with which they viewed and sought to justify the condition of the labourers in their midst, through the long weary years of their penury and travail. But as in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the question agitating the working classes was their right to bo paid wages which should be at their own disposal, for their labour : the question. to-day is, whether mere wages is not a barbarism that should yield to a more equitable mode of remuneration ; whether such an arrangement is not essentially vicious and demoralising in its tendency, and destined to yield ini its turn to a more just and generous arrangement ? There are few fanatical enough to imagine the possibility of the continuance under, any form analagous to the past of two hereditary classes—employers and employed. Apart from’all moral and sentimental considerations, and looking at the relation merely in its economical aspects, it is an anachronism which must be replaced by a relationship more in'harmony with the sentiments of justice and equity prevailing in the present day. What a humiliating spectacle the industrial world presents to our contemplation. The two great classes found in a state of chronic antagonism; reproducing on a different field, and with different weapons, the dynastic and baronial wars of the past centuries. Yet we must' not despair. History, as well as philosophy, teaches us that out of contradictions and strife comes harmony and agreement. Capital and labor is found just now in fierce debate.. How are they to be' harmonised ? The element of harmony is not far to seek., As two gases, which mutually antagonise, are held together by a third, so these two great interests may occupy a plane in which their mutual rights and interests may be conserved and promoted. The demand of the laborer is for a fair share of the profit produced by the joint effort of labour and capital. His complaint is that under existing arrangements his wages are ground down to the lowest minimum that fierce competition can bring "it' to,- while all the profit flows tq the credit of the capitalist. His demand, that it ‘ should be apportioned upon an equitable basis among all who' help to produce' it, is so fair and.

just in its character, that it must be conceded. Indeed the principle involved in this is already acted upon in many ways; such as by granting bonuses, and a percentage of interest on profits gained to the employees ; as well as in the larger co-operative establishments now so well known in almost every town in Europe. Incognito.